Russian Empire (Ready for the Mother Country)
The Russian Empire (Russian: Российская Империя; tr. Rossiyskaya Imperiya) or just Russia, is the largest country in the world at 24,633,786 km² (9,511,157 square miles), and a dominant recognized superpower. It is a multi-party state and constitutional parliamentary monarchy, comprising of 15 republics and a total population of 358,000,000 people, the world's third largest country by population. The Russian Empire was founded by Peter the Great in 1721, shortly after the Russian victory in Great Northern War. Russia's first Tsar after the monarchy restoration in late 1918 was Alexei II (Ready for the Mother Country) of Russia, one of the few persons with a massive effect on the history of the 20th century. He is now regarded as one of the greatest men ever in human history. He saw the industrialization of Russia, its rise as a dominant superpower and its victory over the Greater German Reich (Ready for the Mother Country) in the mid-1940s. Since the Russian Empire emerged as one of the two recognized superpowers after World War II in the mid-1940s, Russia has dominated the world. Russia established several satellite states in Europe after World War II that are still loyal to Russia. During the on-going Cold War (Ready for the Mother Country), it was strong tensions between the West, led by the United States of America (Ready for the Mother Country) and the East, led by the Russian Empire and the Republic of China (Ready for the Mother Country). Russia saw the launch of the first artificial satellite in history, Sputnik 1, in the early 1950s, and the first space station in the late 1990s. Russia was also the first country to put a man at both the Moon and later Mars. Since the end of the 1990s, the Russian Empire has been the largest national economy in the world, and the industrialized region of the Ural mountains has been modernized. Russia is one of the world's most industrialized nations, and a leading producer of oil and natural gas globally. The capital of Petrograd and Moscow, Russia's largest city, is now home to some of the tallest buildings in the world as Moscow's Russia Tower (Ready for the Mother Country) (648 m) and the Federation Tower (Ready for the Mother Country) (509 m), and Petrograd's Lakhta Center (Ready for the Mother Country) (463 m). The Russian Empire is the largest national economy in the world by both nominal GDP and purchasing power parity (PPP), with a nominal GDP of $25.4 trillion and purchasing power parity (PPP) of $25.0 trillion as of 2008. Russia has a abundance of energy resources (oil, natural gas, coal), and has the largest proven reserves of oil in the world. Russia is the world's largest producer of fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, coal), and is one of the most industrialized nations in the world. Russia is also a leader in science technology, as it was the first country in the world to launch the Internet, soon joined by the United States. The Imperial Russian Armed Forces (Ready for the Mother Country) (IRAF) are the largest armed forces in the world. The IRAF consists of the Imperial Russian Army (Ready for the Mother Country) (IRA), Imperial Russian Air Force (Ready for the Mother Country) (IRAF), Imperial Russian Navy (Ready for the Mother Country) (IRN), and the Imperial Russian Space Corps (Ready for the Mother Country) (IRSC). IRA is the largest standing army in the world with 1,600,000 active troops, and over 120,000 heavy tanks. The IRAF is the largest air force in the world with over 10,000 aircraft of various types. IRAF has the largest and heaviest strategic bomber force in the world. The IRN is the largest navy in the world, with 420 active main surface ships (including 7 supercarriers, 14 aircraft carriers, one medium carrier and five super-heavy guided-missile battlecruisers) and over 200 nuclear-powered intercontinential ballistic missile submarines. Russia has the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction in the world, with over 60,000 warheads.